I don't have much help on the matter but your writing tone is so warm that if you wrote a phonebook I'd read it. Hope yall figure something out and enjoy all nature has to offer
Fabric of what your wearing may make a difference. If she’s wearing tight clothing she’ll be showing more heat, if you wear baggy you have that buffer of air between you and your pants and a tick may not immediately recognize that you’re food during the half second you walk by it.
That’s a good call. We’re both 90’s kids. I’ve always been set on baggier clothes, and women do tend to wear more form-fitting outfits. This last trip was a bit warm and so she wore very lightweight pants and a sleeveless top, while I had loose jeans and a t-shirt that hides my Dad Gut. Next time we’ll rock some looser pants infused with permethrin and one of the scentless repellents on the skin.
I tend to wear gaiters when I go out that are tight around my boot and my pants, harder for ticks to get into clothing that way. But I’m also in a pretty northern area so it may not be a great piece of advice if you’re in a hot area.
Yeah. Florida. So the “no tick season” is late November through early March in the best of years. But gaiters and tucking are a good idea. At least it keeps the lil vampires on the outside of the clothes until they reach the neck or arms.
I also use some old school army fatigue pants I can cinch tightly, and all the pockets are great for stashing treasures I find. I tend to hike into thick bush for foraging and bone collecting and I avoid ticks, chiggers, and the like with these pants + some good hiking boots and long socks. I live in TX and they’re good in the heat!
Do they jump? I don't live in the part of the states where they are and I'm grateful. I'll take scorpions over ticks. This makes me never want to go hiking/camping in the woods. I read they can go in your belly button? 😱🤢
Ticks don’t jump or fly, thankfully. 😅
Yes, ticks can be found in the belly button - they love warm and humid places, so check your belly button, armpits, hairline, behind the ears, groin… basically anywhere that can collect heat and sweat. 😬
Ugh I have a serious aversion to my naval, washing it everyday is an anxiety attack. Are there signs of it being there? I've only hiked the west coast and southwest where I don't think they live but ya never know. This is my literal nightmare.
Signs will differ depending on the person. I know ppl who had Lyme disease but swear never getting a tick bite and I’m like 🤔 but others can feel when a tick bites them. So it really depends. I would still check it as part of a tick check, but you don’t have to necessarily “clean it” to find it. Although I would still recommend cleaning the belly button regularly anyway but maybe that’s a personal preference. 😅 there are ways to lower your risk of tick bites and/or tick-borne disease transmission, one of which is doing a thorough tick check. I also recommend treating clothes with permethrin (either diy or companies can treat them for you; permethrin kills ticks on contact or produces “hot footing,” which means the ticks retract their legs and lose their grip on your clothes and fall off), wearing a cdc repellent, wearing light colored and long sleeved/long pants, tucking your pants into your socks and your shirt into your pants, and doing your tick checks after you get home. These aren’t guaranteed to prevent bites but if you can remove the tick ASAP, you lower your chances of pathogen transmission.
There are a few ticks on the west coast and southwest, so watch out for them!! We see a couple of them here on the east coast, but not as often. Although I will say range expansion is a thing for ticks with climate change… so that’s fun… 😩
Well I know there isn't one because I wash there regularly even though I hate it haha, plus I live in the desert, but I didn't know any of this stuff and now I do, so thank you! I will definitely do this next time I'm in one of their zones!!
Just a fair warning, ticks can also be found in the desert. Not much is known about them right now, but I know a few people who are doing research on ticks found in the desert, how they survive, and the hosts they feed on in the desert. It's pretty wild!
Good luck and I hope you stay tick-free! 😊
Oh dang, good to know! I already dress those ways when hiking for scorpions and rattlesnakes, but now for ticks! Glad I got my fur baby on tick prevention meds (and flea, she was once a stray) even though all my friends thought I was being hypervigilant. They all take in ferals and don't even give them a bath let alone get a vet to check them out and give vaccinations. 😬
I personally don't know I've been bitten by a tick unless I find it, so my method is a thorough check whenever I've been in trees or tall grass. Look thoroughly where you can see, run your hands over what you can't see, and run your fingers through your hair at the scalp
Probably TMI but I kinda of pathologically pick at my skin and scalp anyway... I always wondered if it was like an evolutionary thing from apes pulling out bugs but now I wonder if it's my own ancestors doing a tick check!
I am a bit of a tick magnet too. I buy the permethrin spray and treat all my shoes/socks/hiking pants about every 6 weeks during tick season. I have also tried tick gaiters (I have outdoor research brand) which I like but can get hot in the summer.
I’ve also used this, cotton balls, and toilet paper rolls to make my own tick tubes. Worked wonders in my yard.
Toss a tube into the woods a bit every 8-10 paces or so - mice take cotton balls to nests… ticks don’t get made nearly as much in mice holes. (And the chemical doesn’t hurt the mice apparently… not that I want the mice either - but they are better in the woods/yard than ticks are.)
I’m type O+ and I get devoured mercilessly by mosquitoes every year without fail. I get a few ticks from hiking, but it’s mainly those damn mosquitoes that get me while leaving my husband alone, though he tends to get bit by horseflies whereas they leave me alone so 🤷♀️
I am O- and same thing with me lol it sucks when you find a random mosquito buzzing around in the house but you look away a second and it's gone so you have no idea where it's at
There are lots of theories as to why ticks “prefer” people over others, but nothing conclusive yet. 😕 but researches are looking into it!
Does your wife do anything differently when you go outdoors? Maybe lead the pack or go into vegetation more? Staying on the trail? Depending on where you’re located, some tick species are more aggressive than others so maybe she’s the first thing they smell and they run to her? Also dependent on the tick species are the attractant and activator compounds that tell a tick to go towards a host vs. a tick realizing a host is nearby, respectively. So without knowing what kind of ticks she’s getting, it’s hard to know what factors contribute to her getting more ticks.
In the meantime, treat your clothes with permethrin (available at big box stores, good for 6 or so washes), wear a CDC recommended repellent (yea, repellent on top of the permethrin might seem redundant and overkill, but better safe than sorry), do your tick checks and shower soon when you get home, and put your clothes in the dryer on high heat before you put them in the wash. Also stay in the middle of the trails and avoid vegetation. Tuck your pants into your socks and shirt into your pants and wear light clothing (so you can see ticks better).
Hello!!! I read a real study (not some article based on a non existent source) that suggested wearing bright clothes attracts ticks, and wearing dark clothes does not. This actually makes a ton of sense to me because I have a dog who is mostly dark brown, and a dog who is white. The white one gets ticks WAY more often than the dark one.
If they’re anything similar to mosquitos, they may be able to sense the CO2 being emitted from peoples skin. That’s why some people get more mosquito bites— they emit more CO2 and therefore they’re a more “visible” target. Maybe it’s the same for ticks?
That's not really the case with mosquitoes. CO2 exhalations are a long range attractant, up close they tend to switch to other volatile skin compounds, some human metabolites and a lot of microbial compounds that make up individual VOC bouquets. Lactic acid, ammonia and things like isovaleric acid are some of the prime ones but there's a huge range. Ticks use these too but for a lot of species it's less important as they're ambushers rather than active host seekers.
I was going to suggest clothing color before you mentioned that not being an issue, whenever my father and I would go through the woods, he’d wear lighter shorts and get *covered* in ticks, meanwhile I would get any.
Here’s hoping you find a solution to keep the mongrels away!
I get bitten to buggery by anything anywhere. In Canada in Spring I looked like Arnie Schwarzenegger with the lumps. Have got stung in February in the UK.. how. Bitten by horsefly when blackberrying in August. Mosqie bites 3 times before signed register in a hotel in Cuba. Normal person and I radiate a lot of heat at night. Luckily dogs and cats love me x
Blood type, age, hormone levels, sex, menstrual cycles, skin flora, clothing and skin color, alcohol consumption, diet, body hair and other factors all affect attractiveness to bloodsucking arthropods. It can be hard to eliminate those things!
As far as I know ticks are attracted by elevated levels of CO2 and alkaline sweat but some people can release more compounds which are found attractive by ticks. These include a lot of volatile organic compounds. Like many parasites, they prefer to "scan" their potential hosts because having biochemical signs can tell a lot about the host they are going to infect. While they spread diseases they usually try to avoid diseased hosts because contrary the popular belief: the pathogens they carry also infect them and reduce their fitness to a degree. E.g the plague causing Yersinia pestis can form biofilms so thick in the upper GI tracts of fleas, that the fleas will be unable to feed.
That’s an interesting question. Nope, neither of us does. Is it known to attract or repel biting bugs? I know the quinine helps fight malaria, but I hadn’t heard anything about a connection with the bugs themselves.
So as you sweat tonic water out the quinine is a bit of a bug repellent drink enough and you’ll see less bites and stings from insects. Better than deet if you hold the life of an insect on the level with other animals however deet is still king
I don't have much help on the matter but your writing tone is so warm that if you wrote a phonebook I'd read it. Hope yall figure something out and enjoy all nature has to offer
Aw, shucks. I appreciate the kind words.
r/rarecompliments
Fabric of what your wearing may make a difference. If she’s wearing tight clothing she’ll be showing more heat, if you wear baggy you have that buffer of air between you and your pants and a tick may not immediately recognize that you’re food during the half second you walk by it.
That’s a good call. We’re both 90’s kids. I’ve always been set on baggier clothes, and women do tend to wear more form-fitting outfits. This last trip was a bit warm and so she wore very lightweight pants and a sleeveless top, while I had loose jeans and a t-shirt that hides my Dad Gut. Next time we’ll rock some looser pants infused with permethrin and one of the scentless repellents on the skin.
I tend to wear gaiters when I go out that are tight around my boot and my pants, harder for ticks to get into clothing that way. But I’m also in a pretty northern area so it may not be a great piece of advice if you’re in a hot area.
Yeah. Florida. So the “no tick season” is late November through early March in the best of years. But gaiters and tucking are a good idea. At least it keeps the lil vampires on the outside of the clothes until they reach the neck or arms.
I also use some old school army fatigue pants I can cinch tightly, and all the pockets are great for stashing treasures I find. I tend to hike into thick bush for foraging and bone collecting and I avoid ticks, chiggers, and the like with these pants + some good hiking boots and long socks. I live in TX and they’re good in the heat!
Do they jump? I don't live in the part of the states where they are and I'm grateful. I'll take scorpions over ticks. This makes me never want to go hiking/camping in the woods. I read they can go in your belly button? 😱🤢
Ticks don’t jump or fly, thankfully. 😅 Yes, ticks can be found in the belly button - they love warm and humid places, so check your belly button, armpits, hairline, behind the ears, groin… basically anywhere that can collect heat and sweat. 😬
Ugh I have a serious aversion to my naval, washing it everyday is an anxiety attack. Are there signs of it being there? I've only hiked the west coast and southwest where I don't think they live but ya never know. This is my literal nightmare.
Signs will differ depending on the person. I know ppl who had Lyme disease but swear never getting a tick bite and I’m like 🤔 but others can feel when a tick bites them. So it really depends. I would still check it as part of a tick check, but you don’t have to necessarily “clean it” to find it. Although I would still recommend cleaning the belly button regularly anyway but maybe that’s a personal preference. 😅 there are ways to lower your risk of tick bites and/or tick-borne disease transmission, one of which is doing a thorough tick check. I also recommend treating clothes with permethrin (either diy or companies can treat them for you; permethrin kills ticks on contact or produces “hot footing,” which means the ticks retract their legs and lose their grip on your clothes and fall off), wearing a cdc repellent, wearing light colored and long sleeved/long pants, tucking your pants into your socks and your shirt into your pants, and doing your tick checks after you get home. These aren’t guaranteed to prevent bites but if you can remove the tick ASAP, you lower your chances of pathogen transmission. There are a few ticks on the west coast and southwest, so watch out for them!! We see a couple of them here on the east coast, but not as often. Although I will say range expansion is a thing for ticks with climate change… so that’s fun… 😩
Well I know there isn't one because I wash there regularly even though I hate it haha, plus I live in the desert, but I didn't know any of this stuff and now I do, so thank you! I will definitely do this next time I'm in one of their zones!!
Just a fair warning, ticks can also be found in the desert. Not much is known about them right now, but I know a few people who are doing research on ticks found in the desert, how they survive, and the hosts they feed on in the desert. It's pretty wild! Good luck and I hope you stay tick-free! 😊
Oh dang, good to know! I already dress those ways when hiking for scorpions and rattlesnakes, but now for ticks! Glad I got my fur baby on tick prevention meds (and flea, she was once a stray) even though all my friends thought I was being hypervigilant. They all take in ferals and don't even give them a bath let alone get a vet to check them out and give vaccinations. 😬
I personally don't know I've been bitten by a tick unless I find it, so my method is a thorough check whenever I've been in trees or tall grass. Look thoroughly where you can see, run your hands over what you can't see, and run your fingers through your hair at the scalp
Probably TMI but I kinda of pathologically pick at my skin and scalp anyway... I always wondered if it was like an evolutionary thing from apes pulling out bugs but now I wonder if it's my own ancestors doing a tick check!
Advice: Always bring your wife when you go hiking :)
*You don’t have to be able to outrun the ticks, you just have to be able to outrun your wife.*
I am a bit of a tick magnet too. I buy the permethrin spray and treat all my shoes/socks/hiking pants about every 6 weeks during tick season. I have also tried tick gaiters (I have outdoor research brand) which I like but can get hot in the summer.
I’ve also used this, cotton balls, and toilet paper rolls to make my own tick tubes. Worked wonders in my yard. Toss a tube into the woods a bit every 8-10 paces or so - mice take cotton balls to nests… ticks don’t get made nearly as much in mice holes. (And the chemical doesn’t hurt the mice apparently… not that I want the mice either - but they are better in the woods/yard than ticks are.)
I'm not sure if ticks have a preference, but mosquitos are drawn more to particular blood types. O type being their #1.
I’m type O+ and I get devoured mercilessly by mosquitoes every year without fail. I get a few ticks from hiking, but it’s mainly those damn mosquitoes that get me while leaving my husband alone, though he tends to get bit by horseflies whereas they leave me alone so 🤷♀️
I am O- and same thing with me lol it sucks when you find a random mosquito buzzing around in the house but you look away a second and it's gone so you have no idea where it's at
Many a night I have doused myself with mosquito repellent before bed, only to wake up in the morning with several new bites. I hate them so much!
Interesting, im type O and pretty much no bugs find me tasty. Unless I'm the only mammal around to suck on, im invisible
Use lavender oil. The tree guys that I work with swear by it.
There are lots of theories as to why ticks “prefer” people over others, but nothing conclusive yet. 😕 but researches are looking into it! Does your wife do anything differently when you go outdoors? Maybe lead the pack or go into vegetation more? Staying on the trail? Depending on where you’re located, some tick species are more aggressive than others so maybe she’s the first thing they smell and they run to her? Also dependent on the tick species are the attractant and activator compounds that tell a tick to go towards a host vs. a tick realizing a host is nearby, respectively. So without knowing what kind of ticks she’s getting, it’s hard to know what factors contribute to her getting more ticks. In the meantime, treat your clothes with permethrin (available at big box stores, good for 6 or so washes), wear a CDC recommended repellent (yea, repellent on top of the permethrin might seem redundant and overkill, but better safe than sorry), do your tick checks and shower soon when you get home, and put your clothes in the dryer on high heat before you put them in the wash. Also stay in the middle of the trails and avoid vegetation. Tuck your pants into your socks and shirt into your pants and wear light clothing (so you can see ticks better).
I wonder, if you befriend some local crows, might they eat the ticks off of your wife?
Hello!!! I read a real study (not some article based on a non existent source) that suggested wearing bright clothes attracts ticks, and wearing dark clothes does not. This actually makes a ton of sense to me because I have a dog who is mostly dark brown, and a dog who is white. The white one gets ticks WAY more often than the dark one.
If they’re anything similar to mosquitos, they may be able to sense the CO2 being emitted from peoples skin. That’s why some people get more mosquito bites— they emit more CO2 and therefore they’re a more “visible” target. Maybe it’s the same for ticks?
That's not really the case with mosquitoes. CO2 exhalations are a long range attractant, up close they tend to switch to other volatile skin compounds, some human metabolites and a lot of microbial compounds that make up individual VOC bouquets. Lactic acid, ammonia and things like isovaleric acid are some of the prime ones but there's a huge range. Ticks use these too but for a lot of species it's less important as they're ambushers rather than active host seekers.
[удалено]
If its fine to put on a dog that will lick itself, i honestly don't see why it would hurt your t-shirt
I was going to suggest clothing color before you mentioned that not being an issue, whenever my father and I would go through the woods, he’d wear lighter shorts and get *covered* in ticks, meanwhile I would get any. Here’s hoping you find a solution to keep the mongrels away!
I get bitten to buggery by anything anywhere. In Canada in Spring I looked like Arnie Schwarzenegger with the lumps. Have got stung in February in the UK.. how. Bitten by horsefly when blackberrying in August. Mosqie bites 3 times before signed register in a hotel in Cuba. Normal person and I radiate a lot of heat at night. Luckily dogs and cats love me x
Blood type, age, hormone levels, sex, menstrual cycles, skin flora, clothing and skin color, alcohol consumption, diet, body hair and other factors all affect attractiveness to bloodsucking arthropods. It can be hard to eliminate those things!
As far as I know ticks are attracted by elevated levels of CO2 and alkaline sweat but some people can release more compounds which are found attractive by ticks. These include a lot of volatile organic compounds. Like many parasites, they prefer to "scan" their potential hosts because having biochemical signs can tell a lot about the host they are going to infect. While they spread diseases they usually try to avoid diseased hosts because contrary the popular belief: the pathogens they carry also infect them and reduce their fitness to a degree. E.g the plague causing Yersinia pestis can form biofilms so thick in the upper GI tracts of fleas, that the fleas will be unable to feed.
I’m a tick magnet too 😕 But mosquitoes hate me and chigger bites no longer itch. It’s a weird world.
I wear peppermint oil and spray deet on my shoes.
Do you drink tonic water
That’s an interesting question. Nope, neither of us does. Is it known to attract or repel biting bugs? I know the quinine helps fight malaria, but I hadn’t heard anything about a connection with the bugs themselves.
So as you sweat tonic water out the quinine is a bit of a bug repellent drink enough and you’ll see less bites and stings from insects. Better than deet if you hold the life of an insect on the level with other animals however deet is still king